December's aviation webinar, "Aviation Stories of 2023: A Review of the Year and a Look Ahead to 2024" featured expert insight from our regular hosts, Deirdre Fulton and John Grant, as well as guests Edward Clayton from PwC Malaysia and Eddy Pieniazek from Ishka Aviation Finance.

The panel covered the usual global capacity update, and moved on to talk about trends seen in specific regions in 2023. Looking at Southeast Asia, we find that as capacity recovers, constraints not felt since before the pandemic are starting to resurface. The three biggest airports are in the process of adding additional runway capacity to alleviate this.

The conversation moved to the issue of aircraft supply. With the recent collapse of MYAirline and news that Bamboo Airways is withdrawing from international flying and returning around half of their fleet, Edward noted that while capacity in the region has of course been affected, lessors are happy to receive aircraft back. John added that the position is very different from in the middle of the pandemic - lessors are now keen to get aircraft back where possible because supply chain shortages are creating high demand.

Watch the Morning Webinar: Aviation Stories of 2023

Above is a brief snippet of the insight shared by our experts, watch the full webinar for further analysis.

Highlights from the AFTERNOON webinar

A topic up for discussion in the afternoon session was the recent news that Alaska Airlines has acquired Hawaiian Airlines for $1.9bn USD. Combined, they would move from 8th and 14th on the list of largest US airlines (based on seats in 2023), up to 6th place.

John suggested that going forward we're entering a period in which we'll see more consolidation in the airline industry, which done well creates profitability which can be a struggle for airlines due to very small operating margins in the industry.

Eddy shared highlights from Ishka's airline vulnerability matrix, explaining that airlines have, in general, been generating revenues but are still repairing the balance sheet and paying back debt from the pandemic.

Watch the Afternoon Webinar: Aviation Stories of 2023

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